how and when did you get started in boxing, and a few other questions.

[fordraceing_man]

when did you get started?

how did you get started?

did you do it alone or with a friend?

how far do you travel to go to your gym/trainer?

trying for pro or just for fun?



thanks,

im just board at work

[ICEMAN JOHN SCULLY]

Getting Started..

From my book...

Kids all over the United States (and the world) right now are taking up the sport of basketball in part, at least, because they see LeBron James on TV doing something they think they want to do, too, and they want to be just like that kid. They want to just play like him, sure, but they probably even want to walk like him and talk like him, too. They want to wear his jerseys and his sneakers, of course, but they probably want to even wear the types of clothes they see him in off the court, too. The influence of top athletes are strong and, as a result, I would have to say that it stands to reason that a very high percentage of the young athletes in this country -and even the world- have gotten into their particular sport either as a direct or indirect result of their admiration of one of that sports top pro or amateur stars.

So, like a lot of boxers over the last forty-five years, I got into the sport with my main influence being "The Greatest," Muhammad Ali. Probably more kids have gotten into boxing as a direct or indirect result of the influence of Ali that any other boxer in history. If kids got into basketball because of Lebron or Michael Jordan or soccer because of Pele' and hockey because of Gretsky then they surely got into boxing because of Muhammad Ali.

Even as a young kid I knew Ali was a special person. My father was a very big sports fan, and boxing in particular, and had several books that I used to read more than once. I read the Jim Bouton story, "Ball Four," and I read the Howard Cosell book, "Tell it like it is." I read Sugar Ray Robinson's autobiography and I also used to read the several books on Ali that he had including his 1975 autobiography called "The Greatest." I was mesmerized and captured by what I read in that book more than any other and also the images that the words put in my head were vivid and strong. I read the book and I wanted to go someday and see the 5th St. Gym in Miami and I wanted to run the mountains at Deer Lake. I pictured myself visiting Central High School to see where he was often caught "shadowboxing in the halls" and I also wanted to see Madison Square Garden where he fought Frazier on that electric night in 1971 when "everybody who was anybody was there to watch."

I was probably the only kid in my whole school that ever voluntarily looked up Kinshasa and Manila on a map.

I was also one of the few from my town that ever even tried to box. I was always surprised, and continue to be, that more kids from Windsor haven't even attempted to get into the sport. There were some here and there that came to the gym with me but none of them ever lasted. In the history of my town there are only a handful that ever really competed in actual fights, namely Earl "Terminator" Anderson, John Spehar, Danny Nolan, Tony Judge and both Joe Jones Jr. and his dad, Joe Sr. (Other than myself, the one with the greatest success was Anderson, a kid I grew up with. He split two fights with Clay-Bey when Clay was just starting out and in 1992 Earl made it all the way to the National Golden Gloves finals at super heavyweight, losing a hotly disputed decision to Alvin Manley.

When I was twelve years old my father bought me a pair of Everlast gloves that I always thought looked just like the ones Ali and Frazier wore in their first fight. On the weekends I used to wrap my hands with toilet paper and put clear tape over them so they would look like real hand wraps. Then I would get on the bed and impersonate the voice of legendary announcer Chuck Hull as he did the pre-fight introductions and the post fight announcement of the fights winner. I had a score sheet and used an alarm clock as a timer and after every round I would tally it. I would throw punches and I would hit MYSELF in the body and head. I wanted to make it as real as I could, at least as real as a "Rocky" movie. Sometimes I would fight Joe Frazier or Sonny Liston but more often than not, for whatever reason, I ended up fighting Jimmy Young. And, oh yeah. I was Muhammad Ali.

Or once in a while I would switch over and be Rocky Balboa himself as I recited lines during my fights from those famous movies.

"Aint gonna' be no rematch."

"Don't want one."

And, because I loved doing the reading of the score cards, we always went the fifteen round distance. Sometimes I would use that fake blood that kids use at Halloween and I would put it on my lips or eyes after certain tough rounds and let it run down my face. I would do post-fight interviews in the bathroom mirror using a hair brush as a microphone. I was like a one-man play. The best part of the fight would be when it was over and I would read the cards in my best Chuck Hull voice. It would always be a split decision and when I read the last card I always imitated, for effect, that awesome pause that Chuck Hull did before he would announce the winner.

"Judge Tom Kazmareck has it ONE forty-five (He used to stress the ONE), ONE forty-three... for the winner...... aaaaaand NEW Heavyweight Champion of the World, MUHAMMAD ALI!!

Then I would go to the bathroom mirror and conduct the post fight interview in a Muhammad Ali voice. It was in March of 1982, after seeing me beat up poor old Jimmy Young for about the 300th time, that my father finally took me to the little gym on an old elementary school stage in the nearby town of Windsor Locks. "The Windsor Locks Boxing Club" run by Joe Barile, Sr. He had seen a small article in a local newspaper that had a picture of Mr. Barile holding the pads at that gym for some kid that looked to be about my age and when I saw that picture it was a mixture of excitement and nervousness that intrigued me enough as to where I wanted to go check it out and see what kids my age that really boxed look like.
My father brought me to the gym and I met Mr. Barile and watched from up close as guys like Bobby Dowden, Vinny Fusco, and Shane Cyr and his older brother Mark worked out. My first day was uneventful in that I didn't get to do anything but watch but Mr. Barile told my father that he could bring me back the next day and I could start.

At that point I was fourteen years old and my previous boxing experience consisted of three-hundred or more "bed fights" with Jimmy Young and nine bouts in my own neighborhood boxing league along with sparring under the street lights sometimes. We called our league "The WBC" (Windsor Boxing Council). It basically consisted of my friend Chris Provost and I recruiting kids to box me for our "league championship." My first match up was in May of 1980 with the much smaller Tony Vierra. I was about 135 pounds while he was only about 110 back then. We had no weight classes or anything like that so, basically, it was just a thing where whoever wanted to challenge me was good enough. In Tony's basement I pinned him up against his washing machine and stopped him in two.

Next up was the much bigger Greg Szepanski. Greg was heavier than me but he wore glasses and out there in the wide open Provost yard I was able to move around outside of his range of vision so well that he could barely SEE me let alone actually HIT ME. TKO-2 for me. That was the first time I boxed against a live opponent that made me try to imitate Ali. I had no formal training yet so I just did what I remembered seeing Ali do on TV against the guys he fought. I learned by imitating the moves and when I got on my toes and danced and jabbed Greg couldn't hit me. Neither could Dave Coleman or Ron Jensen or some kid named Larnell from Hartford that went ten rounds with me on my back porch deck before losing a decision. Larnell's cousin, a kid that lived just two houses away from me named Michael Belcher, was one of the judges that favored me so you know it was no "home yard" decision. I ended up with a 9-0 record in the neighborhood before heading to that gym in Windsor Locks where I met the guy that would be my first trainer, a man named Joe Barile.

On the first day there at the W.L.B.C. I just observed what everybody was doing and met Mr. Barile. He said I could "come back tomorrow with sweat clothes and try it out." I did come back and he put me in with a kid a little older than me named Mark Cyr that already had a couple Golden Gloves bouts worth of experience under his belt. I got in the ring with him and I danced and moved. Made him miss. I don't know if I even hit him very much but I know that I was light on my feet and he didn't hit me at all.

Afterwards he was obviously impressed as he asked me "Hey, how long have you been boxing?" I told him the truth. "About forty-five minutes." (I didn't consider our "WBC" to compare to the boxing these guys were doing)

[JuicyJuice]

I started at 13 years old, after seeing Mike Tyson come through the ranks on Grandstand and Nigel Benn win the ABA's on Grandstand.

I just went down to the local boxing gym and tried to be like Tyson and Benn.

I went alone at first, my friends were *******.

About 30-40 miles, right now.

Just for fun, right now.

[ELPacman]

Well when I started, I went with friend only because he knew the area. That's another thing, try getting a local listing of all your clubs near by you. Hopefully you don't gotta go too far. Mine was 17 miles away and in a town I never been to though my friend used to live in, so he came along to help me find the damn place. I wouldn't have mind going by myself though, let's remember, this is boxing, not a weight lifting gym(although mine and most do have that). For the most part you aren't gonna be judged on your size or how much muscle you got. I always felt comfortable in there at around 145-150lbs while the other guys in there were 170+. I wanted to go pro though with my bad eyes, I was just really seeing how far I could take it. If you can't go pro, at least do it for fun because it's hella fun in a boxing gym. It's the only place you don't get looked at funny for punching air or taking out insane aggression on a punching bag If your going pro, your trainer usually takes care of arranging the matches and whatnot until perhaps you can get further connected, though that's mostly based on how good you are and who sees you.

[Floydmayweather]

I started when i was 18 and picked up from there. I club fought and now i want to win golden gloves. I never thought about being pro but i think if i had a shot id take it.

[mayweather]

From my book...

Kids all over the United States (and the world) right now are taking up the sport of basketball in part, at least, because they see LeBron James on TV doing something they think they want to do, too, and they want to be just like that kid. They want to just play like him, sure, but they probably even want to walk like him and talk like him, too. They want to wear his jerseys and his sneakers, of course, but they probably want to even wear the types of clothes they see him in off the court, too. The influence of top athletes are strong and, as a result, I would have to say that it stands to reason that a very high percentage of the young athletes in this country -and even the world- have gotten into their particular sport either as a direct or indirect result of their admiration of one of that sports top pro or amateur stars.

So, like a lot of boxers over the last forty-five years, I got into the sport with my main influence being "The Greatest," Muhammad Ali. Probably more kids have gotten into boxing as a direct or indirect result of the influence of Ali that any other boxer in history. If kids got into basketball because of Lebron or Michael Jordan or soccer because of Pele' and hockey because of Gretsky then they surely got into boxing because of Muhammad Ali.

Even as a young kid I knew Ali was a special person. My father was a very big sports fan, and boxing in particular, and had several books that I used to read more than once. I read the Jim Bouton story, "Ball Four," and I read the Howard Cosell book, "Tell it like it is." I read Sugar Ray Robinson's autobiography and I also used to read the several books on Ali that he had including his 1975 autobiography called "The Greatest." I was mesmerized and captured by what I read in that book more than any other and also the images that the words put in my head were vivid and strong. I read the book and I wanted to go someday and see the 5th St. Gym in Miami and I wanted to run the mountains at Deer Lake. I pictured myself visiting Central High School to see where he was often caught "shadowboxing in the halls" and I also wanted to see Madison Square Garden where he fought Frazier on that electric night in 1971 when "everybody who was anybody was there to watch."

I was probably the only kid in my whole school that ever voluntarily looked up Kinshasa and Manila on a map.

I was also one of the few from my town that ever even tried to box. I was always surprised, and continue to be, that more kids from Windsor haven't even attempted to get into the sport. There were some here and there that came to the gym with me but none of them ever lasted. In the history of my town there are only a handful that ever really competed in actual fights, namely Earl "Terminator" Anderson, John Spehar, Danny Nolan, Tony Judge and both Joe Jones Jr. and his dad, Joe Sr. (Other than myself, the one with the greatest success was Anderson, a kid I grew up with. He split two fights with Clay-Bey when Clay was just starting out and in 1992 Earl made it all the way to the National Golden Gloves finals at super heavyweight, losing a hotly disputed decision to Alvin Manley.

When I was twelve years old my father bought me a pair of Everlast gloves that I always thought looked just like the ones Ali and Frazier wore in their first fight. On the weekends I used to wrap my hands with toilet paper and put clear tape over them so they would look like real hand wraps. Then I would get on the bed and impersonate the voice of legendary announcer Chuck Hull as he did the pre-fight introductions and the post fight announcement of the fights winner. I had a score sheet and used an alarm clock as a timer and after every round I would tally it. I would throw punches and I would hit MYSELF in the body and head. I wanted to make it as real as I could, at least as real as a "Rocky" movie. Sometimes I would fight Joe Frazier or Sonny Liston but more often than not, for whatever reason, I ended up fighting Jimmy Young. And, oh yeah. I was Muhammad Ali.

Or once in a while I would switch over and be Rocky Balboa himself as I recited lines during my fights from those famous movies.

"Aint gonna' be no rematch."

"Don't want one."

And, because I loved doing the reading of the score cards, we always went the fifteen round distance. Sometimes I would use that fake blood that kids use at Halloween and I would put it on my lips or eyes after certain tough rounds and let it run down my face. I would do post-fight interviews in the bathroom mirror using a hair brush as a microphone. I was like a one-man play. The best part of the fight would be when it was over and I would read the cards in my best Chuck Hull voice. It would always be a split decision and when I read the last card I always imitated, for effect, that awesome pause that Chuck Hull did before he would announce the winner.

"Judge Tom Kazmareck has it ONE forty-five (He used to stress the ONE), ONE forty-three... for the winner...... aaaaaand NEW Heavyweight Champion of the World, MUHAMMAD ALI!!

Then I would go to the bathroom mirror and conduct the post fight interview in a Muhammad Ali voice. It was in March of 1982, after seeing me beat up poor old Jimmy Young for about the 300th time, that my father finally took me to the little gym on an old elementary school stage in the nearby town of Windsor Locks. "The Windsor Locks Boxing Club" run by Joe Barile, Sr. He had seen a small article in a local newspaper that had a picture of Mr. Barile holding the pads at that gym for some kid that looked to be about my age and when I saw that picture it was a mixture of excitement and nervousness that intrigued me enough as to where I wanted to go check it out and see what kids my age that really boxed look like.
My father brought me to the gym and I met Mr. Barile and watched from up close as guys like Bobby Dowden, Vinny Fusco, and Shane Cyr and his older brother Mark worked out. My first day was uneventful in that I didn't get to do anything but watch but Mr. Barile told my father that he could bring me back the next day and I could start.

At that point I was fourteen years old and my previous boxing experience consisted of three-hundred or more "bed fights" with Jimmy Young and nine bouts in my own neighborhood boxing league along with sparring under the street lights sometimes. We called our league "The WBC" (Windsor Boxing Council). It basically consisted of my friend Chris Provost and I recruiting kids to box me for our "league championship." My first match up was in May of 1980 with the much smaller Tony Vierra. I was about 135 pounds while he was only about 110 back then. We had no weight classes or anything like that so, basically, it was just a thing where whoever wanted to challenge me was good enough. In Tony's basement I pinned him up against his washing machine and stopped him in two.

Next up was the much bigger Greg Szepanski. Greg was heavier than me but he wore glasses and out there in the wide open Provost yard I was able to move around outside of his range of vision so well that he could barely SEE me let alone actually HIT ME. TKO-2 for me. That was the first time I boxed against a live opponent that made me try to imitate Ali. I had no formal training yet so I just did what I remembered seeing Ali do on TV against the guys he fought. I learned by imitating the moves and when I got on my toes and danced and jabbed Greg couldn't hit me. Neither could Dave Coleman or Ron Jensen or some kid named Larnell from Hartford that went ten rounds with me on my back porch deck before losing a decision. Larnell's cousin, a kid that lived just two houses away from me named Michael Belcher, was one of the judges that favored me so you know it was no "home yard" decision. I ended up with a 9-0 record in the neighborhood before heading to that gym in Windsor Locks where I met the guy that would be my first trainer, a man named Joe Barile.

On the first day there at the W.L.B.C. I just observed what everybody was doing and met Mr. Barile. He said I could "come back tomorrow with sweat clothes and try it out." I did come back and he put me in with a kid a little older than me named Mark Cyr that already had a couple Golden Gloves bouts worth of experience under his belt. I got in the ring with him and I danced and moved. Made him miss. I don't know if I even hit him very much but I know that I was light on my feet and he didn't hit me at all.

Afterwards he was obviously impressed as he asked me "Hey, how long have you been boxing?" I told him the truth. "About forty-five minutes." (I didn't consider our "WBC" to compare to the boxing these guys were doing)

holy **** man go write a book or somethin reps to u for the awesome post haha

[ICEMAN JOHN SCULLY]

LOLOL that IS from my book !!!! The Iceman Diaries

[GattiFan]

Started training with Bryan Brian just before college. Won some amature bouts while there. Now its just me working out trying to stay in shape, working the bags and pops helps with the mantis mits when he can. Just moved back to the Tulsa, Oklahoma area and...well...lets just say the boxing pickins is pretty slim. My goal is to open a boxing gym and a small venue here soon. It will be the only one in the Tulsa area, and only the third in the whole state. I have to train in MMA/judo just to get sparing in.

[Rockin']

I got started when I moved to a new city and school as a freshman. Im in class like my first or second day and theres this funny lookin' kid with braces sitting in front of me. He turns around, out of the blue, and proudly states that he could kick my ass because hes a boxer. He offered to pay my registration and membership to the gym and then he was going to kick my ass. Needless to say, I showed up and got the bug.

I rode my bike to the gym with my duffle bag over my shoulder. It might have been about 1.5 miles.

When I turned pro we would ride all over the Metro Detroit area to get good work. Have gloves will travel type of thing.

Rockin'

[xzworks]

nice observation iceman..